My crystal ball following Solstice

Well AHT in my experience the Superline is a fantastic piece of kit and sounds absolutely fantastic ( with added hicap) so not sure where your coming from

Yes everything can be improved but I don’t see the Superline as being problematic

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All I am prepared to predict is that Naim will announce another product(s) when they are ready to. As to what it will be, I haven’t got a naffing clue. I do hope it will be the product at the top of my wish list. Time will tell whether I will be still be waiting and hoping next time it will be arriving, or I will be one of the many Naim customers happily handing their dealer some cash and awaiting delivery.

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The other great news is the rapid warm up time, much better than having to leave it on 24 / 7, having 2 sources, this is great news and was one of the reasons i swapped my superline/supercap for an aura.
Plus i like the loading switches, much better than the silly plugs the superline has.
The only thing i am a bit nervous on is the dual power supply in one box, never been the best way to do things has it.

Crikey, “problematic” in terms of performance?! I guess things must have moved on fast in recent years. It was only back in 2009 that reviewers were raving about the Superline, and Martin Colloms for one gave it the highest score ranking he’d ever given any source component of any kind. Still seems not that long ago…

2009, its 2021 now lol

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Well, naturally products are reviewed when they are new, and how much did analogue audio really evolve since 2009, not by much … seems to me that 20 year old 252 etc are also still fine. Anyways, Hifi Critic gave the Superline a very good review in 2018.

The superline is still good, but it could do with an overhaul, just to sort out the 2 things i noted would be great, then a possibility of a tweak or two in the sound department would be great added bonus.

New stuff is always exciting :slight_smile: Personally I am very happy with mine, not missing knobs to play with :slight_smile:

Some went from Superline / SC dr to Tom Evans Mastergroove and Whest Titan. However both are at least twice more expensive.

I love the Naim green logo and buttons. White is just so….mainstream. Hope they give the user the ability to change colour if they go white. I might be the only one that think 500DR look more hardcore than Statement.

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Funny how much opinions can be apart. I liked the loading plugs on the demo Superline a couple of years ago. Those switches look fiddly to me, but as I said just different opinions.

Its not so much having knobs to play with, but once you have the ability to switch rapidly between different loadings and very easily, it soon becomes apparent that its the way it should be done, just so easy to hear the difference and so you can quickly decide what’s best for you

Just kidding, yes, I can see how one can want easy front-side adjustment. Personally, I like the clean fronts and am happy with the plug options, less seduction for endless tinkering

In the turn-table years, 2009 is the day before yesterday… :rofl:

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For me it wouldn’t be about front, back or underside adjustments. But about the adjustments simply being there to try. With the NVC TT for example there are 256 combinations (but only for MC strangely), all you need is to own the preamp. How many plugs for the Superline do you own? And I bet Naim charges for each additional one.

My crystal ball following Solstice is a NAC 272 + 1, but what I would like is a CD transport

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You can combine R plugs to narrow down the value you need, the inverse of the resistance of the combined plugs being equal to the sum of the inverses of the two plugs used. Not too hard to work out with a calculator (or an app).

No one needs the 10nF cap plug so you can even make your own up with a soldering iron, though you may need to factor in the internal 10kΩ load when selecting a pair of resistors.

The superline was the last gasp of the old no compromise Naim. The new phonostage panders to convenience, even if Steve proves to have worked miracles. Direct comparison will be difficult due to the lack of BNC inputs, using the RCAs is second best on a superline.

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I own those that came with it. Luckily, with MC it’s less of an issue and I am happy with what I have, which is the values Rega recommends. Sounds fabulous to me.

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The Superline comes with a range of different value resistance and capacitance plugs as standard.

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But admittedly much fewer than the dial settings of the new stage or others like the Aura

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